The remoaners aren’t giving up – yet

Life in the remoaner bubble remains as surreal as ever. The Guardian newspaper has publiushed an article by David Cameron’s former tutor Vernon Bogdanor, claiming that “A second Brexit referendum is looking more likely by the day.” Wishful thinking perhaps? As we have pointed out on numerous occasions, Mrs May and the Tory Party dare not row back on their commitment to deliver Brexit. Not only would it be as good as handing the keys of No. 10 to Mr Corbyn, but it would precipitate the worst crisis the party has faced since the split that followed the repeal of the Corn laws in 1846. What Bogdanor fails to take into account is that now Article 50 has been triggered, we are on the way out. Even EU sources have suggested that it may not be reversible. Furthermore, Mrs May shows no sign of conceding a second referendum, not to mention the fact that no one in their right minds would want to go through that gruelling campaign again, especially given the lack of interest among the general public

Still, it’s the silly season aka the Parliamentary summer recess, so editors have to be a bit more creative in trying to fill the columns. The Financial Times, another bastion of remainiacs, is no better than the Guardian. In a piece entitled Brexit reveals Britain’s enduring flaws, Simon Kuper claims that the idea of leaving the EU was hatched in the Oxford Union in the 1980s by the likes of Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, because “This generation of mostly former public schoolboys didn’t want Brussels running Britain. That was their caste’s prerogative.” No better proof of the decline in the standards of journalism can be found than this once respected newspaper giving space for such utter tosh. Is Mr Kuper completely unaware of the long-standing opposition to EU membership within the Labour Party? Or of the Campaign for an Independent Britain, which was set up in 1969 to oppose our accession – before Boris Johnson or Michael Gove were old enough to go to school?

True, both articles acknowledge that the Brexit talks are not going as well as David Davis and his team had hoped, but widely-reported differences of opinion within the Cabinet over the “hardness” of Brexit does not mean that Brexit isn’t going to happen. Whether it is seamless is another matter, of course, but happen it will. I wouldn’t normally quote Jean-Claude Juncker approvingly, but he does seem to have the measure of the mood in the UK (including the government) and has distanced himself from those Brexit sceptics who are expecting a big back-pedalling “My working hypothesis is that it will come to Brexit”, he said.

Meanwhile, our attention has been drawn to a piece by Jonn Ellidge in the New Statesman, which claims that a recent YouGov survey proves that Brexit voters hate their own children. The reason for this astonishing statement is because:-

“A healthy majority of Leave voters, it found, claimed that ‘significant damage to the British economy’ would be a price worth paying for Brexit: 61 per cent, compared to just 20 per cent who disagreed. More bizarrely, when the question was made more personal, and respondents were asked would it be worth “you or members of your family” losing their jobs, 39 per cent still thought Brexit was totes worth it – slightly more than the 38 per cent who, like normal, sane people, replied ‘obviously not’”.

So QED, Brexit voters, which the author equates to retired baby boomers “who are prepared to crash the economy because they don’t like Belgians” are a selfish generation who must hate their offspring because “when asked directly whether they’d swap the wealth and security of their own children for a blue passport and the ability to deport Polish plumbers, they said yes in huge numbers.“

As blogger Samuel Hooper says, Ellidge’s claims are “vile” and totally ignores the real reason why a significant majority of older voters supported Brexit. “Does he not realise that the counterfactual, unrecorded by YouGov (who did not bother to probe more deeply) is that perhaps these older people – rightly or wrongly – thought that by voting for Brexit they were preserving some other vital social good for their descendants, something potentially even more valuable than a couple of points of GDP growth? I would posit that the supposedly hateful Daily Mail-reading generation of grey haired fascists scorned by Jonn Elledge actually do not have any particular desire to inflict economic harm on their children and grandchildren, but simply realise – through having lived full lives through periods of considerably less material abundance than those of us born since the 1980s – that other things matter too. Things like freedom and self-determination, precious gifts which were under threat during the Second World War and the Cold War, and which the older generations who remember these difficult times therefore do not casually take for granted.”

Absolutely, but no amount of debunking is going to stop the blinkered fanaticism of the remainiacs. Among the chief of these is the European Movement, which is ramping up its campaign to stop Brexit altogether, linking up with other like-minded groups including Scientists for EU, Healthier IN the EU and Britain for Europe to try to stop Brexit. I debated with a few members of the European Movement and although I didn’t always win, it was fun to embarrass them by mentioning the funding they received from the American CIA during the 1970s. A recent e-mail has encouraged recipients to join this iniquitous organisation which sees itself as able to “represent the groundswell of opinion against departure from the EU.”

Sorry, European Movement, but the ground isn’t swelling round here. If even I, as a political “anorak” and long-standing opponent of our EU membership, am getting fed up with all the debating about how badly the cabinet is divided, how much we will have to pay to leave, trading arrangements and so on, Joe Public is even less interested. He cast his vote a year ago and whichever way he actually voted, he was never really very excited by the EU, never really understood what we had joined and just wants the country to move on. Hopefully on March 29th, when we finally leave, the European Movement and its fellow-traveller remainiacs will move on – preferably to well-deserved oblivion – but I’m not holding my breath.

8 Comments

there better not be any back pedalling on withdrawing from the EU I am in my 30’s work full time and voted to leave the EU so I am certainly no oldie which is an insult thrown at leavers by the Remoaners still unable to accept that they lost the argument 1 Year ago libertarianpartyuk.com

Personally I hope that when we finally exit the EU the hardened Remoaners will exit the UK to join their “fellow travellers” across the water.
It would be the only honourable outcome of their endless denigration of the idea of a self governing UK.
Unfortunately I doubt that many of them will do the honourable thing.

Another referendum would be political suicide for the Conservative Party — they’d be out of power for another generation. And any softening of what people voted for (Brexit, labelled ‘Hard Brexit’ by the desperate liberal left and the media’) would go down the same way. And if there were another referendum undoubtedly there would be a stronger LEAVE result than the first since any Project Fear arguments would be given short shrift by the public. The EU was always disliked by a large percentage of Brits. The only reason that the result was so close in 2016 was due to Project Fear — many just wanted to see the backside of the EU but were scared for their jobs and their kids’ jobs. The result now would probably be 60-40 for leaving, or better — though I don’t play down that the Pied Piper effect of Corbyn might have an effect if he reversed his current pro-Brexit tune and betrayed his lifelong opposition to European integration (he worshiped Tony Benn’s anti-EEC views).

Of course, the way that Brexit proceeds is all dependent on Mrs. May. Although she was a Remainer I do believe that she has since seen the light. She spoke out very strongly for Brexit during the 2017 GE campaign — too bad she also spoke out for fox hunting and the dementia tax and against kids’ school lunches! All depends on her conviction and strength to hold against the coming wave of attacks by Big Business and the liberal left and the media. I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room in Toronto when the bulletin flashed on TV that she had called the 2017 GE. She is somewhat unpredictable. If she does have to go, David Davis would be a fabulous successor. I believe in his Brexit conviction more than Mrs. May’s. If David Davis should ever be replaced, then it would be a sure signal that the British people were being betrayed on Brexit.

could You imagine the damage 10 years of a corrupt Labour Party led by donkeys like Corbyn McDonnell Thornberry & Abbot in charge could do to Britain We would be like Greece or Jezza’s beloved Venezuela the thought of these numpties running anything terrifies Me and I don’t like the Tories in particular eutruth.org.uk

Its the Silly season.
The only reason 52% to 48% appears close Actually 481 Constituencies & 1.3million majority.
30,000 Lobbyists,most banks & the Unelecte Lords realise most of their ”Cocconed” lifestyles are under threat.
The Killing of Jo Cox MP has Eerie echoes of 2001 Murder of Anna Lindh in Sweden A Europhile Swedish MP
favoured the Euro, the Swedish public wanted to keep Krone but it was very close in referendum.
Was Jo Cox assassinated by Same MI5 branch as Murdered Dr.David Kelly?…
I sttod in Remain Costituency is South London,as an Independent& the other 5 Candidates peddled the myth WTO tariffs would Cost Extra £100bn!
So unfortunately Public can be gullible either way,When will Electoral Commission take voter fraud seriously.A lot of University students voted twice ?

I agree about the standard of modern journalism John, it is abysmal. Though whatever comes from the Guardian, Independent, Telegraph(?), and the Economist, must be automatically suspect. There was a report, during the Referendum Campaign, that all four of those productions, along with the BBC, were taking money from Brussels “to promote the European Project.” it has been suggested that without that money, the Guardian would fold.

[…] concerned that the government is going to back track. My views have not changed since writing this article that Mrs May and the Tories, whatever side they supported during the referendum campaign, have no […]

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

PLEASE NOTE: All comments are pre-moderated, to ensure they comply with our high standards of constructive, informed and civilised discussion. We do not employ full time members of staff, so there may be a delay of several hours before your comment appears. By submitting a comment to our site you agree to comply with our code of conduct. Comments that do not comply may be edited or not published.

Join CIB

Join the UK’s longest-running membership organisation for leaving the EU.

The remoaners aren’t giving up – yet

Stay Updated

Get new articles delivered to your inbox

Leave this field empty if you're human:

The Campaign for an Independent Britain is a non-party political campaigning organisation of people from all walks of life who recognize that continuing British membership of the European Union poses grave threats to our liberties, independence, and economic prosperity.

Popular Posts

CIB is the UK’s longest-running membership organisation campaigning for UK independence from the EU. We aim to promote constructive, informed and civilised discussion on all aspects of leaving the EU and the dangers of Euro-federalism. All comments are pre-moderated, to ensure they comply with our community standards. We do not employ full time members of staff, so there may be a delay of several hours before your comment appears. By submitting a comment to our site you agree to comply with the following code of conduct. Comments that do not comply may be edited or not published.

Stay on topic. Comments must be relevant to the topic of the article.

Be respectful. Use moderate, civil and respectful language. Aggressive, offensive or disrespectful language (whether explicit or implied/masked) will not be tolerated.

No spam. Comments containing links to other websites will be deleted as spam. Links to external content directly relevant to the topic of the article may be included, provided the comment includes an explanation as to how it is relevant to the topic of the article.

Political neutrality. CIB is a cross-party organisation: comments should respect this. Moderately-worded criticism of politicians/policies is of course permitted, but should not be partisan in nature.

Be constructive. Any suggestions should be practicable, reasonable and attainable.

Maintain high standards of debate. CIB is a long-standing, widely-respected organisation. Our aim is to promote constructive and informed discussion on Brexit and EU-related issues. If you wish to rant or harangue, please find an alternative website.